


connect

by xiilnek



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, also fiction is weird in that discussion of something with no realworld equivalent, can mirror (as it does here) discussion of realworld things like assault, so warning for discussion of assault, the archive warnings I can check don't seem to cover that, while no GRAPHIC depictions of violence there is a tad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-12 10:33:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15338004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xiilnek/pseuds/xiilnek
Summary: I always wanted to see how Connor would tell someone about this.





	connect

**Author's Note:**

> For anyone who didn't read the tags: Discussion of something that might as well be discussion of assault. If the way this is written doesn't feel respectful or if I should be tagging for other things, please let me know.

There are plenty of people around, sitting on benches, doing whatever it is people do outside during the day. They crowd the sidewalk; to get anywhere in this part of town, you have to kiss your personal space goodbye. One guy, fiddling with some big metal box on his lap, looks up sharply as they pass - or, given where he’s glaring, as _Connor_ passes. That’s not weird. Laws might change, but people don’t. Hank doesn’t think much about it.

Until Connor reels back, clutching at his head.

“G-get back! You don’t have access! Get _out of me!_ ”

A woman yelps as Connor knocks into the man next to her. Connor doesn’t seem to notice, lurching backward further until his back hits a lamppost while people yell and scramble away from him. Hank spins around to the guy with the box; it’s got antennas and dials and a little light on the top is flashing red, exactly the same shade as the LED Hank can see through the gaps in Connor’s desperate grip.

“Hey! Shut that damn thing off!” Hank charges toward the guy and the guy gives him this savage grin, all teeth, and takes off. The guy turns sideways and starts to weasel his way through little openings in the crowd but Hank, Hank _bulls_ his way through it, forcing himself through those same too-small gaps between people on the power of adrenaline and rage and broad shoulders, and Hank gives the same wide, savage grin the guy’d given him as he launches himself into a leap that tackles them both to the ground. The guy gets an elbow in Hank’s face, and Hank gets a knee in the guy’s kidney. The guy tries to grab Hank and roll and Hank falls heavily onto his side, grabs the box that’d fallen next to them, and wacks it hard against the side of the guy’s head.

Hopefully that broke the damn thing but he’ll check in a second; while the guy’s stunned Hank rushes to grab his wrists, taking his handcuff bar off a loop on his belt and slamming it against them.

“You’re under arrest!” He yells it as quick as he can while the cuffs shoot out of the ends of the bar and tighten themselves, not wanting to waste time he could be using to check on Connor but needing to, needing to make sure this shitstain doesn’t get off on a technicality. “For assault on a police officer, possession of an unlicensed weapon, assault on _another_ police officer, you fuckin idiot, and creating a public disturbance. Hey, take this asshole!”

That last he yells to the two uniforms making their way over. Crowded, touristy parts of town like this tend to be patrolled a little better so them being here isn’t a surprise, but it _is_ lucky they got here so quickly. He flashes his badge at them, just to make sure they know what’s going on. “Take him back to the station, lock him up. Take him!”

He all but throws the guy at the uniforms - kids, really, but they can take him, he’s cuffed - and stops only to grab the box off the sidewalk before running back to Connor. There’s a woman kneeling next to him but she looks more freaked out than anything else, so Hank labels her ‘random good samaritan’ and puts his focus where he really needs to, on Connor himself.

It looks like the box didn’t break after all, because Connor hasn’t moved much. He’s still slumped against the lamppost, still clutching at his head while his LED goes from red to yellow and back again.

“Hey, I got the thing, don’t worry, I can just, uh- just turn it off-”

Hank reaches for the biggest dial and turns it and hears a horrible noise, a thick, distorted static noise coming from between Connor’s clenched teeth, and Hank curses, turning the damn thing as hard as he can in the other direction.

“Other- other one too,” Connor gasps out, while the good samaritan looks helpless and clutches at Connor’s shoulder. “Turn it off.”

“Other-” Hank mutters, looking frantically at the thing. There is only one knob. “Shitfuck, what- what fucking- Fuck _this-_ ” Hank decides and takes out his gun, and smashes its handle against the base of the antenna until he feels a crunch. The light on the box flickers, then goes out. He hears Connor let out a sigh.

“Okay, he’s okay, you can clear out,” Hank says tiredly, waving his hand at the woman kneeling next to Connor. “Thanks very much, show’s over, go home.”

The woman blinks at him and then looks down at Connor, who after a couple tries opens his eyes enough to look back at her.

“He’s right,” Connor breathes, sounding more determined than sure. “I’m fine. I’m fine.”

Hank raises his eyebrows at the woman, jerks his head away from them. It’s enough. She stands and jitters for a second, shifting from foot to foot, rubbing at her hands.

“Um. That looked like it really sucked,” she says, sounding awkward and shaken. “I hope you feel better.” And with that, she takes off. Hank doesn’t bother to watch her go. Instead he scoots closer to Connor, watching as Connor pushes himself up.

“How do you feel?”

“I’m fine. Just fine.” Connor takes a breath deep enough that Hank can hear it shake, raises fingers up to his LED that Hank can see trembling. “It’s- That was unexpected, that’s all.”

“Yeah, well. Guy’s on his way to the station now; he won’t take us by surprise again. Come on.” Hank reaches out for Connor’s arm to lead him away and Connor jerks back from him, breath hitching.

Hank freezes. He turns his movement, slowly, into a gesture. “Let’s go over there, under that tree. Is that alright?”

“Yeah.” Connor isn’t meeting Hank’s eyes, and Hank keeps watching to see if that changes. Connor doesn’t look up. Connor straightens his tie.

Hank sits down under the tree. Connor sits less than an arm’s length away from him. For a moment, the two of them sit there and watch the cars go by.

“I’m sorry,” Connor says. When Hank looks over at him he is biting his lip. “For, uh-” Connor shakes his head. “I don’t know what came over me.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Hank puts his hands on his knees and leans forward, frowning. “What did that guy do to you?”

Connor opens his mouth. Connor closes his mouth. He presses his lips between his teeth, looking thoughtful and far away. “He got in my head,” he says, quietly. “Like-”

He still is not looking at Hank. He reaches in his pocket, fiddling with his coin.  

“When I worked for Cyberlife,” Connor says, sounding determined now, decisive, and does not stumble over the phrase _worked for_ , “there was a program. She monitored me. Many other things, too, but that’s how I knew her. She monitored my prototype.” He licks at his lips, watching another car roll by. “She was modeled from Elijah Kamski’s own mentor, you know. I saw her picture at his house. I think she was his original interface.”

Another moment goes by. Hank doesn’t try to fill it; only watches him.

“When it became clear I wasn’t going to- to do what she wanted, she took control of me. She got inside my head.”

Connor looks up at the leaves above them. “I almost shot Markus,” he says, quick and quiet as if that can hide that he is confessing it. “Everything, all of it, it all would have ended there. Everything they fought for. I almost ended all of it. And today-”

Connor looks down again, putting his hands in his lap and watching them rub against one another. “I couldn’t keep him out, either. Either of them. If you hadn’t kept him from gaining access to my processors, who knows what I would have done.”

“It wouldn't have been _you_. You know that, right? Some asshole tries to, I don’t know, make you some kind of weapon, they’re the ones who end up sitting in front of a jury. Not you.”

“My body, Hank. And my inadequate security.”

“ _Connor-_ ” Hank sounds frustrated. Connor turns his head to track a movement in the corner of his eye; Hank’s hand, reaching out between them and then stopping, curling up, tapping the side of itself rhythmically against the concrete. “Our tech guys are gonna be on it. As soon as we send that stupid box back to them. And then we’ll get everyone else on it too, alright? All those guys who used to code for Cyberlife, Elijah fucking Kamski himself. And they’ll make a fuckin, I don’t know, a firewall, or whatever the hell. Take the blame while you can, Connor, cause as soon as I get back to the station I’m gonna make this their problem.”

Connor tries to consult his options, decide on what to say. He can’t think of a single thing.

“What?” Hank asks and Connor, trying to find out what Hank means, measures his own expression, finding the corners of his lips turned up approximately 1.2 centimetres on the left side, 1.5 on the right. When had that happened?

“They owe it to you guys, don’t they?” Hank goes on, sounding faintly indignant. “It’s a security patch thing. Back in my day companies were supposed to keep up with those.”

“And until then?”

Hank looks up at the tree, gaze absent, thinking about it. “Well, we get those tech guys on it, like I said. Shove the case we were working on off on someone else for a while, interview the little skidmark who ought to be sitting in one of our cells by now and find out whether this is a hacking ring or just one guy. Then start digging those Cyberlife eggheads out of the woodwork. And in the meantime _I’ll_ be your security firewall, or whatever it is. Sound like a plan?”

“I mean it’s not much,” Hank goes on after a second, sounding a little rushed, tentative, his fist starting to bounce against the concrete again. “I mean what do I know about uh, all that tech shit. But I _can_ hit stuff real good.”

Connor curls his own hand into a fist and sets it close beside Hank’s. “You do have a pretty mean diving tackle,” Connor agrees, voice warm. The movement of Hank’s hand stills and for a while they sit that way, looking out at the traffic, knuckles touching.

For a while. Not forever. They have work to do.


End file.
